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Dream on

Dreams and story-making walk side by side – no wonder the Aborigines speak of the Dreamtime in their creation tales. I’ve never forgotten Lucy Coats leading a shamanistic dream journey at the SCBWI retreat in Dunford House – a powerful way to go inside your creative self.And yet I cordially dislike long dream sequences in books. They remind me too much of friends and family recounting their dreams. They amble about like an unedited first draft. (I have read books with short dreams that work once you know the character – never open with one!)

I am aware of the irony verging on hypocrisy. At my most ambitious moments, I intend my work should have a dream-like feeling reminiscent of Jean Cocteau’s La Belle et La Bete or Powell & Pressburger’s The Red Shoes – but I often find it pretentious in others. Oh dear.

Beauty and the Beast 1946

These verge on nightmare (a post for another time) like the haunting Marianne Dreams by Catherine Storr. Perhaps that’s why dreams are often feared. There’s a danger in going into that irrational chaotic part of yourself – who knows what you will find?

To sleep: perchance to dream: ay, there’s the rub;

Hamlet Act III, Scene i

Hence people’s love and distrust of surrealism or fantasy or any such dream-like perceptions as art forms – often at the same time. On the surface, they don’t make sense.

Indeed dream as a concept has been diluted in popular culture and adspeak into a kitsch adjective. Dream date I can just about get, but ‘Dream Kitchen’ must be the nadir of longing. Walter Mitty is meant to be laughable and the word dreamer can be delivered with a sneer.

But…but… ‘That irrational, chaotic part’ is also the creative part. It can seem scary, but it only bites when we ignore and suppress it. I suppose that’s what I’m always trying to show in my creative workshops – that working with it makes your writing stronger. I entirely agree about long, rambling dreams in books though! Keep on dreaming, P – I have absolute faith that someone as determined and talented as you will make it to the other side of the writing dream, so definitely keep on keeping on.

I find myself thinking about my personal mission as a primary teacher. It’s something like: Achievement Through Aspiration. Where does aspiration come from? To aspire to something you need imagination and imagination flourishes in the garden of our dreams.

You know, the thing I liked about joining SCBWI and meeting lovely people like you isn’t that my dreams felt closer, but that it went from being something dreamed of to a reality being worked towards. I see your writing and path in exactly the same way, and I hope you do too. (And sorry it took me so long to comment – babies!)